What would happen if another brand copied your product packaging, colour scheme, website design, or even the overall look and feel of your customer experience?
Most brands focus on protecting their logo, yet some of the most valuable brand assets are often left completely exposed. Once a competitor or counterfeiter begins imitating these elements, the damage to customer trust, market share and brand value can be significant.
The reality is that a brand is made up of far more than its name or logo.
Customers often recognise a business long before they read its name, thanks to distinctive colours, packaging, product shapes, store layouts or other visual cues as part of the customer experience. Collectively, these elements are known as trade dress, and they can be just as valuable as a registered trademark.
Recent legal disputes have highlighted just how important it is to protect these assets.
The latest reminder: when branding becomes a legal battleground
A Chinese court recently ordered premium tea chain Molly Tea to pay more than £1.1 million in damages after ruling that its four-petal floral logo infringed Louis Vuitton’s well-known registered trademarks. The court concluded that, despite the businesses operating in different sectors, consumers could still assume there was a commercial connection because collaborations between luxury brands and lifestyle businesses have become increasingly common. Molly Tea has indicated that it intends to appeal.
The case is a reminder that trademark disputes are not always about identical logos. Courts frequently consider the overall commercial impression a brand creates, particularly where a mark has acquired a strong reputation.
Today, it's about much more than just logos
Modern branding in a digital world relies on visual consistency to build brand authenticity.
Think about how many brands you can identify from:
- A particular shade of colour
- A distinctive product shape
- Packaging design
- The layout of a retail store
- Repeating graphic patterns
- The overall “look and feel” of a product.
These features form part of a brand’s trade dress and, it’s where they have become distinctive and unique, that they may be capable of legal protection.
For brands, these elements often represent years of investment in building recognition, trust, and customer loyalty. If another business begins adopting a similar visual identity, it can dilute brand value and confuse consumers. At SnapDragon, we regularly see businesses invest significant time and resources into building distinctive brands, only to discover that some of their most valuable visual assets have never been properly protected.
Counterfeiters understand the value of these assets, too. Rather than simply copying a logo, they often imitate a brand’s wider visual identity — from its packaging and colours to its overall look and feel — to make fake products appear authentic. When consumers unknowingly purchase poor-quality or unsafe counterfeits, the damage is often felt by the original brand.
Trade dress extends beyond packaging
Trade dress is the overall visual appearance or “look and feel” and is often associated with product packaging, and product design, but it can also encompass so much more.
Examples include:
- Retail shop layouts and design
- Product presentation.
- Website styling.
- Product containers and packaging.
- Signature decorative patterns.
- Uniform branding across multiple customer touchpoints.
The Louis Vuitton Vs Molly Tea case demonstrates this well. The disputed floral emblem reportedly appeared not only on products but also across stores, packaging, promotional materials and digital platforms, significantly increasing the scale of the alleged infringement.
It’s a pattern we see time and again through SnapDragon’s enforcement work. Counterfeiters often replicate a brand’s overall look and feel—not just its trademarks—to make fake products appear authentic.
Why early IP protection matters
Many businesses only consider intellectual property protection after launching a new brand or product, or once the business has become established.
At SnapDragon, we encourage businesses to think about IP protection from the very beginning — before a product is launched, or even with a patent pending. Building a strong IP strategy early can help avoid costly disputes and reduce the risk of having to rebrand later.
The reason is simple: the longer valuable brand assets remain unprotected, the greater the risk to your business. Once another business begins using similar branding, the consequences can extend far beyond legal fees. Rebuilding brand recognition, customer trust and market presence can take years.
A forced rebrand alone can involve:
- Researching, sourcing and designing new product packaging
- Designing and registering new branding
- Changing digital and physical touch points
- Updating websites
- Updating marketing assets
- Social media assets and channels
- Customer documentation and materials.
The commercial risks and impact don’t stop there. Businesses may also face:
- Forced product redesigns if branding or product elements infringe existing rights.
- Marketplace takedowns that disrupt sales and reduce product visibility.
- Delayed international expansion where existing registrations prevent entry into new markets.
- Customer confusion caused by copycat products and similar branding.
- Competition from counterfeiters that undermines brand value, trust and revenue.
- Expensive legal disputes that consume time, resources and management attention.
Ultimately, protecting your brand early is far less costly than rebuilding its value once it’s been compromised.
Think internationally and without borders
Businesses increasingly sell online from launch.
A brand that works perfectly in the UK could conflict with an existing registration elsewhere, particularly if international expansion is planned in the future.
The Louis Vuitton dispute with Molly Tea also illustrates that well-known brands may enforce their rights across multiple classes of goods, not just geographies, where their reputation is sufficiently strong enough. Even businesses operating in different industries should not assume they are immune from infringement claims.
Building a stronger IP strategy
Building a strong defence strategy means protecting more than just your brand name. An effective IP strategy should also safeguard the assets that customers recognise most.
Depending on your brand, that could include:
- Your brand name – protecting your business name helps prevent others from trading on your reputation or creating confusion amongst customers.
- Your logo – one of your most recognisable visual assets. Just try to imagine Nike without the Swoosh.
- Your visual identity – This includes distinctive colours, graphics, patterns, and other design elements that make your brand instantly recognisable, such as the red sole of a Louboutin shoe, or Burberry’s iconic check pattern.
- Taglines and slogans – a memorable slogan can become a valuable brand asset in its own right — think De Beers’ iconic tagline: “A diamond is forever.”
- Product shape and packaging – packaging is often the first thing customers see and one of the most commonly copied elements of a product. Distinctive product shapes can be equally recognisable, from Toblerone’s triangular chocolate bar to the iconic Coca-Cola bottle.
- Your digital presence – domain names, websites and other online brand assets play an important role in how customers recognise and trust your business.
Regular IP audits of a brand can also help identify valuable assets that may otherwise have gone unprotected.
Your brand is one of your business’s most valuable assets
Customers often buy familiarity and experience as much as products or services.
The colours they recognise, the packaging they trust and like, and the overall shopping experience of a brand – all contribute to purchasing decisions.
Whether you’re launching an innovative start-up or managing an established business with multiple brands, protecting those distinctive features early can prevent costly disputes later. As recent international trademark cases demonstrate, businesses are increasingly willing to defend every aspect of their visual identity—not just their logo.
Is your brand fully protected?
Many businesses have valuable intellectual property hidden in plain sight — from packaging and colour schemes to product shapes, website design, and other distinctive brand assets.
Protecting those rights is only the first step. At SnapDragon, we help businesses identify, monitor, and enforce their intellectual property across global online channels, social media, SEO, apps and marketplaces. By combining proactive monitoring, investigations, and enforcement with a strong IP strategy, we help brands stay ahead of copycats and counterfeiters.
If you’d like to understand where your brand is most at risk, speak to the SnapDragon team to explore how a proactive brand protection strategy can help safeguard your business.
Would you like to see how SnapDragon’s AI can protect your brand?
If you would like to explore how SnapDragon can accelerate your online brand protection, safeguarding all your valuable brand assets, get in touch to schedule a demo.
We would love to hear from you, show you what’s possible, and get you protected.
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